Uncertainty eases over Castro's health

Communist officials have rallied hundreds in outdoor meetings to publicly declare their support for ailing leader Fidel Castro to reassure Cubans’ worried about their long-ruling leader.

Several hundred people waving small red, white and blue Cuban flags sang the national anthem in the plaza of a working class neighbourhood just before nightfall yesterday as local Communist officials whipped up patriotic fervour through exhortations from a sound stage on an articulated truck.